Credit Card News

Thanks to special credit cards from Citi, small businesses can continue to thrive even in a tough economy, as long as they are equipped with the right kind of rewards program.

As the old adage goes, small business is the cornerstone of the American economy. During financially straining times, though, it might seem like small businesses will ultimately fail but with a strong business strategy and the right tools, small business are more successful than ever. Citi plans to play a major role in seeing this trend continue by offering new credit cards that offer more rewards and benefits to small business owners across the United States.

More Flexibility

Although small businesses in niche markets are gaining clout online the key to steady growth and maintaining success is flexibility. Businesses that are able to quickly adapt to shifting trends, new technology, and better tools will ultimately have an easier time finding their market. Citi financial corporation seems to understand this mentality and have recently announced revisions they have made to their ThankYou rewards program.

If you have a CitiBusiness Streamlined Checking account or a CitiBusiness Flexible Checking account and use them to make at least two online bill payments or pay two checks every month, you can be eligible for their new benefits (as long as you also have one of their Citi credit cards, of course).

As long as you can manage this (which should not be very difficult) you can combine your ThankYou rewards benefits from your Citi personal and business checking accounts with your personal and small business credit cards in order to escalate the rate by which you earn points. Obviously, this makes it easier to spend the money you need in order to operate your business every single day.

Rewarding Entrepreneurialism

In a press release to explain this new, innovative move by Citi, Maria Veltre, the managing director of Citi’s small-business unit said:

For many small business owners, their life is their business and their business is their life. In listening to our small business clients it became clear that they want to earn rewards for things they do every day for their personal lives and business, such as using cash management services, making credit card purchases, or having a small business loan. By making Citi’s proprietary ThankYou loyalty program available to these clients, we are providing the most value to their banking relationship.

If that were not enough to convince you of their genuine effort to improve small-business owner’s experience with their financial services, Citi is also offering 40,000 bonus ThankYou points when open a CitiBusiness Streamlined Checking account or a CitiBusiness Flexible Checking account through the end of June. That is the equivalent of $400 that can be redeemed as gift cards; gift cards that can be used towards a wide variety of business-related or personal products and can be used in the real world or on the internet.

Other Eligible Business Credit Cards

With this improved program in mind, you can collect and share points from all Citi-associated consumer and business credit products which include the AT&T Universal Business Rewards Card and the CitiBusiness ThankYou Card. The former lets you earn:

5 ThankYou points for every dollar spent on AT&T-related purchases

3 ThankYou points on gas, office supplies, and other professional services

1 point on everything else.

Similarly, the latter gives you:

15,000 bonus points when you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months of your membership

3 points on the dollar towards eligible purchases in a handful of rotating business product and service categories